1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to color/monochrome determination processing of a printing apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
A color printer automatically performs processing to determine whether PDL (Page Description Language) data is color or monochrome for each page and determines whether the printer is operated in the color mode or in the monochrome mode in accordance with the results of the color/monochrome determination processing for each page. Then, in the case where the PDL data is determined to be color by the color/monochrome determination processing, the printer activates in the color mode and the value of a color counter indicating that color image data is output is incremented. In the case where the PDL data is determined to be monochrome by the color/monochrome determination processing, the printer activates in the monochrome mode and the value of a monochrome counter indicating that monochrome image data is output is incremented. Then, a serves person charges a printer use fee to a user in accordance with the counting results of the color counter and the monochrome counter and periodically performs maintenance of the printer parts of cyan (C), magenta (M), and yellow (Y) used in color printing.
Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-155415 has disclosed a printing system aiming at improvement in throughput at the time of performing printing in units of copies including both color printing and monochrome printing. Specifically, a technique has been disclosed that enables printing in units of copies including both color printing and monochrome printing by the printing operation that needs to be performed only once by transmitting a monochrome conversion command to convert data into monochrome image data along with image data for color printing to the printing apparatus.
In the printing system disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2012-155415, for image data that is to be printed, the number of copies of the total number of copies to be printed in monochrome printing is specified by a user. Because of this, in the case where monochrome image data is intermingled with the image data that is to be printed, the copies for which color printing is specified of the total number of copies to be printed (the total number of copies to be printed−the number of copies for which monochrome printing is specified), even for the monochrome image data, printing is performed in color. Further, depending on an image processing flow, there is a case where CMYK data is converted into K monochrome data (K monochromatization) after the data is determined to be color by the color/monochrome determination and thus the color data changes into monochrome data. As described above, printing of data that should be printed in monochrome originally in color consumes the parts, such as the developer unit and the drum that are provide for each color toner of CMY, more than necessary in the case of, for example, an electrophotographic printing apparatus.
In order to prevent the parts, such as the developer unit and the drum, from being consumed more than necessary, it is desirable to perform control so that color image data is printed in color and monochrome image data is printed in monochrome while taking into consideration improvement in throughput.